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Volleyball22/08/2015

Turkey face strong opposition in Pool B

Italian Emanuele Zanini coach of Turkey is pointing on the flags of his team Turkey and his origin Italy

Dubai, United Arab Emirates, August 22, 2015 - Turkey came to the 2015 Men's U23 World Championship as the last qualifier, but their Italian coach Emanuele Zanini is seeking a semifinal berth from the strong Pool B when they start their journey by meeting Argentina on Monday.

The competition feature the top two teams from each of the FIVB 5 confederations beside the organisers and the best ranked team in the Junior ranking, and as Turkey missed the way to the prestigious event through the European vacancies they had to wait for the ranking to secure a ticket to Dubai being the 7th according to the January ranking.

"We know that out dream of semifinal ticket will face a lot of obstacles specially we are drawn in Pool B along with Giants Russia and Brazil beside the emerging Argentina, Mexico and Tunisia," Zanini commented upon arrival to Dubai.

"We faced a very long season for that team because 3 of them were involved in the Turkish participation at the FIVB World League in June and then 8 of my squad participated in the European League where they played 10 matches in the period of 1st of July till 10th of August. Finally the team was joined together only 10 days ago to start the preparation for the World Championship," the coach added.

"What made me optimistic is the three friendly matches against the World giants Russia where we won the first two matches 3-1 and 3-2 before we lost the third 1-3. Playing against such world class teams made a lot of enthusiasm to the players and we need that to overcome the strong teams of our pool here to make our dreams alive."

"With Russia, Brazil and Argentina in the same pool, I think we have to work very hard to qualify to the semifinal as my objectives, but we have to fight to do it."